Is This Really the End of Cellphones? End to End Long Range Encryption With Meshtastic.
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- Опубликовано: 29 май 2024
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We are real world testing with meshtastic, so many of the tests we've seen online are done in optimal conditions with seemingly impossible ranges. Today, we took meshtastic to two separate locations in wooded and cityscape areas to see what kind of range you can ACTUALLY expect. We will also touch on what their use case and limitations are, why you may want them and when! This is the meshtastic video worth watching.
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You can also hook it up to ATAK. I haven’t tried ATAK but sharing way points and location could be useful
Good tip!
Meshtastic has been picking up a lot lately, but it’s not an end all be all. It is extremely limited by line of sight, unless you set it up with MQTT which requires a router at which point you can communicate around the world but that kind of defeats the purpose of off grid communication. Here is some examples of where it excels: operating in a team environment in a remote area you can link Meshtastic with ATAK and get live location and SMS communication between members of your party all in one platform. This would be beneficial for tactical, search and rescue and hunting parties who anticipate being within a mile to two mile radius of one another (on average) depending on line of sight and if you can set up repeater nodes in highly elevated locations
It’s important to understand the limitations with LoRa based communication. Without line of sight your maximum range is quite typical. About a half mile. But line of sight between nodes is where the technology excels. Just one extra node placed at a higher altitude overlooking a town means most of the town can talk to each other just be bouncing off that 3rd node. Can you see each other? No? Then you probably can’t talk to each other. But can you both see the same tower from 20 miles away in opposite directions? If there’s a node there, then you can probably talk to each other.
This is impressive, I’m not tech savvy though here is a reason to learn
If I can make them work anyone can!!
You said it’s on 868, which is illegal to operate on in N.America, 868 is only legal in Europe. Also, that makes me think your antennas might not be matched to the freq it’s operating on. If you’re indeed using 868, make sure you’re using antennas tuned for 868. Running a 915 antenna on 868 will shorten the range. Also the whip antenna you’re using is omnidirectional ONLY when orientated vertically. There will be dead spots at each tip of the antenna.
You’re right though, it’s still a radio, but having good knowledge of RF theory is imperative to getting the most out of meshtastic.
Lora868 is just the name of our transceiver module; this “technically” isn’t a radio so you don’t need a license to operate it and it doesn’t follow the same laws as radio. We also operated on the 915 frequency.
Lora868 is just what Lora was in, these are heltic V3 boards so we’re running whatever the default settings are for our region without tuning anything.
Antennas were tilted so you could read the screen, otherwise they were held upright.
You can see we actually spent a LOT of time on this and making sure we did everything proper by the fact that my hair is a whole new length by the end 😅😂
@@DeskPop do you know if you can change the power output of the transceiver? I know my TBS Tango 2 Pro controller for fpv drones operates on 868/915 (mines locked to 915), and while outputting at 1W I can go 40km on a fixed wing with clear LoS, getting telemetry to and from the drone as well as rc control and gps data, and MAVLINK telemetry too. 2 different things I know, but it blows my mind that these aren’t getting the benefits of LoRa that drones are capable of flying while no more than 10ft AGL. New to meshtastic, but been building and flying fpv for almost a decade.
@@DeskPop In RF, a 'transceiver' is the circuitry responsible for transmitting, and a 'receiver' refers the circuits responsible for receiving a signal. The board you are using contains both a transmitting and receiving circuit, making it capable to both transmit and receive radio frequency signals.
It is a 'radio'.
The frequency that these small LoRa/Meshtastic radios are legally able to transmit on in the United States is 915MHz; this band has been set aside for Industrial, Scientific, and Medical uses and can be transmitted on without a license provided serval limitations are adhered to, including total radiated power, continuous transmit time, non-interference on licensed bands, ect.
You should always ensure via hardware and software that your device is operating only on the approved frequency, the power is within limits, and not trust default configurations that may be for a different frequency.
For example, the EU uses 868mhz for it's ISM band frequency and it would be wildly illegal to transmit in the US on that frequency without a license. (to the tune of a 10,000$ FCC fine per occurrence and possible jail time)
I work on meshtastic and none of this is accurate, where did you get this info?
@@aaeront5051 you can clearly see the antenna says “915” on it; we matched the antenna frequency.
Thank you for actually doing something useful. No one does this anymore lol
The amount of range tests I see on these where they’re being mounted to a drone in range test mode or done in the most peak conditions made me extremely hopeful on the range. They’re great and added to the tool bag; but not magic… expect to “home Base” a node wherever you plan to use them.
@@DeskPop Yessir. I'm about to do a similar test with the baofengs. We've had this video planned for several months but its been on the backburner, in my initial test I was able to get just under 2 miles with bad weather and it cut out right behind a hill, going to do a more controlled experiment next. Also plan to explore some encryption techniques with them. Keep it up bro.
Such cool, relevant not overwhelming info on something most havent even heard of. Bravo deskpop.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Hard to cover the new tech and balance the right amount of information without trying to glaze everyone’s eyes 😆
Different and interesting. Nicely done!
I use them with ATAK. Very capable once you understand the use cases
Great video, useful information to see realistic expectations
There is some fiddling to do if you want to get longer range. Tuning your antennae and setting up more of them to make the actual mesh network will get the best results. Just two units will only give you a limited range similar to walkie talkie radios.
We trialled this tech as tactical data network a few years back. Fell over with too many nodes, rebro etc and scary EW risks but still pretty cool squad comms option.
Thanks for making this vid so I can send it to people while I try to coerce them into buying $50 tomodachi-walk-talkies. First video that explains the concept in simple terms, and shows actual real world application.
Couple of questions:
- Do you think this is scalable?
- Do you think upgrading the antenna would increase the range considerably?
- Would you recommend a T-Echo for people that want a ready-out-of-the-box option?
- Is the Meshtastic app easy to work with once you had everything setup?
Is it scalable? Yes, absolutely- I see it worth the investment to buy 5 or so and keep them in an EMP proof bag or box. Just locally I can use another dudes mesh network to reach extra range in my area, you can link hundreds if you really want to. As long as each node is within range of another node the total range is unlimited.
I recommend these for a ready to go out of the box option. You can buy complete units on Etsy that are already flashed, if you don’t want to flash it yourself with the firmware the ready-to-go already built ones can be bought on Etsy for like $60/each.
The apps confusing at first but within a day we had figured it out and gotten used to it; I think if you have these pre-set up and pre-linked to an iPod touch or device of your choice the app will be great.
@@DeskPop awesome, thanks for the reply. Already ordered a couple of T-Echos and excited to try them out. Keep cranking out the great content. Also, looks like y'all are fellow WA/PNW boiz. 😁🤙
This was a great video, I can never understand this kind of stuff and you guys made it actually pretty understandable
My pops has somthing like this actually for when he’s out hiking. Though his is a garmin and prolly costed way more than this. This shi is actually super cool and I’m glad you did a video on it. (Edit) I believe my pops works via sat so the range is insane
The Garmin bands are sicko for solo hikers yessir
This is really interesting. Thanks
Always good to see you in these comments 🙏🏻
I haven't personally messed with these besides having friends give them to me so we could use atak. But we have gotten better range here in Southern California. I think we used T beam with a good antenna which looks a lot bigger then the units you're using in the video. Not sure if thats why you didn't see better performance or not but just my observation.
It’s important to try and keep the antenna orientations correct. If one is vertical but the other horizontal you could have issues with reception. These work. You just have to use them correctly. I’ve seen the same unit you have talk over 2 miles away in a city setting. You guys need to study up a little and deploy these correctly and try again.
For the record, I have two solar nodes mounted at 20’ and about 2 miles apart. I have made contact 3 miles away from the closest node. in an urban settings. People have made contacts over 150 miles from one node to another.
Filmed in beautiful Gig Harbor? I always have my eyes out for you guys! Thank you!
Yessir, we figured this was one we wouldn't have to drive an hour and a half away to film after filming in Ruston so downtown was the move!
Great vid. Mesh is on my radar, and this video had the easiest to understand explanation and use guide I've seen.
Found your channel this week and subbed.
Thank you! We try to keep stuff as condensed and simple as we can; I get bored fast 😂
So do I understand this right? If someone isn’t on your mesh you can still ping of their device? So if enough people had these you could potentially have unlimited range?
Correct
Thank you for being unbiased. This channel is the absolute goat of bringing the people the real shit.
We do our best to make videos worth watching when we can 😆 thanks for subbing!!
Where I live, I tried meshtastic for a while and was having trouble picking anyone up. I later got a repeater node set up on a hill and I'm now able to pick up a few nodes in the area, though the terrain in the area still limits the effective reach.
Lol the hydrogen car 😂😂
Cool video. It's nice you can still do things even if you don't have access to all the gun stuff you'd like to do being in the PNW.
we're trying to do what we can with what we can for sure. thanks for the support!
Meshtastic is pretty cool device, personally I'd depend more on a HF mobile transceiver I can do more with. As a licensed amateur radio operator, I'd use meshtastic but I wouldn't call it a end all be all.
May not be the best “grid down” coms, but some specific uses I haven’t hear people mention yet is in places towers may be overwhelmed. Like concerts… or protests 🤷♂️
Great video though
Could this be used for like status notifications on a property? like a gate opens, power goes out, a motion sensor is activated? Basically, ways to port into the system for automated notifications.
I didn't think I would run into anyone with the same profile picture as me
@@jacobkellyy1181 BROTHERRRRR
@@clarkdl19 brotherrrrrrr
The start of the end ... :)
These are awesome once paired with a mesh network.
Hopefully we explained that to people during our evaluation.
We will keep buying nodes for our network, it's a good software.
We set up a solar repeater 30" in the air with 10dbi antenna and 5dbi antennas on the handhelds are getting a 15 mile radius. our terrain is pretty flat
Keep your antennas vertical and you will do a bit better. At least keep them both polarized the same.
I'd like to see an actual long-range line-of-sight test.
All the homies love desk pop
We love the homies
What frequency are those antennas ideal for? Could be an issue
We’re on 915 and the antennas are 915
Could also be the stock antennas or otherwise bad antennas. Amazon is uniquely bad for buying antennas and the quality is not guaranteed and are often poorly tuned. Fortunately meahtastic makes antenna reports for low end antennas with good performance. Also if the antennas aren’t oriented the same direction (both up) the range will be severely reduced.
it's all about the antenna, then placement location
How close does a phone have to be to a node to be able to use it. Could I put 4 of these outside within .5 miles of each other and anyone inside that zone use them?
Great question; each node has to Bluetooth to the device using it. So you’d need a node on you to use.
The nodes can connect to other nodes independently; but the app for interface requires a Bluetooth link.
i did range testing with my Lilygo t-deck and my heltec v3, i didn't even get 200 feet away. it was line of site, i don't get it. i live in the county setting. no hills flat open ground. Line of site not even a block away. what am i doing wrong. didn't hardly got out of the driveway. ant ideas ?
are you on a 915 signal with 915 antenna? we have our range set to "Long slow"
@@DeskPop yes I'm on a 9:15 frequency in the US, and I'm using extended upgraded antennas
@@rickymcdaniel6708the connection of the antenna is likely wrong or it’s the wrong sma connector
@DeskPop yes. I got 2 of the same antennas, and I checked the sma, its male sma antennas. And they both are for 915mhz. Everything is tight. Everything works till we are 200 feet or more apart. They both are on the same channel they both are set to long fast. I'm at a loss. Can't figure it out..
@@rickymcdaniel6708 possibly bad antennas? really odd!!!
It's use case is a little niche, but it dose have applications. Dissident networking, sure, can't jam a wide mesh area with dozens of devices spread out. Communication that cannot be traced, perhaps but the app going through Google probably has some user register somewhere so... Meh, kinda cool for city mesh networks, and the will be counters for uses as criminal coordination.
You can always boot it on an iPod touch with no internet connection as well. It’s a niche product for sure; I think a really really practical use is the camping aspect
what if you put the home base node on a drone and send it vertical, above cover.
Yep, that's definitely a way to get the best range anywhere
Where did you get that top, super cute!!
H&M
Damn dude. That’s useful as fuck. Thanks homie.
Yessir; get some built 🤙🏼
Love your content! You guys are awesome! Your videos should have way more views than they do! Come on RUclips play fair!
@@Traviare1985 thank you, we are trying our best!!
From soembody who has been using for 5 months.... That case / Antenna combination set-up is far from optimum. also Each antenna should be the same polorisation (both vertical) cars are metal which screen the radio frequency, yse phones work but that because there are cell towers everywhere. and cell towers are high and "hight is might" as the signal is limited by line of sight. they will go many miles really easy but at line of sight highpoint to highpoint or via a mesh.
We said this. This is real world, not “optimal” conditions, the use case we recommended was the use case we tested for.
Also every test with the vehicle was done outside the window.
It’s also an upgraded antenna and about the largest you’d want to drag around.
Just some guys meshin around town.
If you close your eyes, you’ll hear Ben Shapiro selling to you.
yall are like ten minutes away from me
we're just some good ol Washington boys.
I’d have some if they came pre built and ready to rock
Etsy has the pre-built sorted out for ya!!
@@DeskPop awesome, I had searched awhile back and couldn’t find any.
@@BDD- muziworks I believe sells both printed versions of his case and complete units on his Etsy store if that helps
@@DeskPop thanks for the assistance
I got much better range by switching from long/fast to long/moderate or long/slow, and didn’t notice any significant delay I’m messaging.
We went super long/slow for our test.
I’ve gotten 1.5 miles reliable range so far in a suburban/rural area with one static node about 6 meters up indoors and a mobile node in my backpack.
@@DeskPophawt. 😅
Well you need more than 2 devices to get the mesh effect.
Yes; we explained this.
I only mentioned it because you seemed little underwhelmed at your range. I think some people have unrealistic expectations for 100milliwatt transmitters but also you have to take advantage of the repeater/mesh functionality from a properly elevated vantage-point to truly appreciate its coverage. Btw thanks for sharing your video.
@@briankendall1978 Basically; I expected it to match my Beofang range without a mesh, but I’d seen videos posted recently where people were claiming “miles” of range between two nodes. I was hopeful in the sense that I wanted to believe it, but figured it would probably match the radio range since they’re more or less the same system. I’m hoping it came across that “Meshing” the nodes was the optimal use case
it's a radio
Great video! I had read the hype and bought a bunch of the t-decks(blackberry style standalone unit) only to find out the range is super meh. I thought my units were defective so thanks for confirming my findings!
Can boost the signal with big antenna
Whose payroll are you on, AT&T's ?
As a non ham licensed dum dum, i don't need a license for these right
correct
I dont think your get the full benefit of the mesh tech with only two nods
Total build cost is just under $100. The batteries alone are $30. These are from the links provided in description. Where are you getting your price breakdown from that these are only $30 to build?
Battery is $8, maybe actually look at the links. The $30 option is a 4 pack
Which link?
Two pack is $49 ($25 each)
Battery I preferred is $7.99 from the link.
Thats $32.99
The case file I linked is free, and it uses like 25¢ worth of filament
@@DeskPopballer my dudes
I have made a hiltop repeater and have hit 60km with actual messaging, not in range test mode.
That awkward moment when Zoomers discover the Pager... I just felt my back pop again and yes, I will be ordering one asap.
Pager+ now with encryption
I would say, more likely than not, its made by big brother
Can be used completely off-line on iPods as well.
No doubt there’s a way to breech the encryption, but this would at the very least reduce it to localized data
@DeskPop I'm reminded of a story where undercover feds gave criminals encrypted phones to use. Well they were encrypted alright but the cops already had a tap on them. It just seems like something sneaky they would do
The encryption is symmetrical so the easiest way to crack it is to get one of the nodes with the key but then you have a client device that has the communication logs
@land_and_air1250 I'm just saying they've planned for all of this. Rhe deepstate leaves no stone unturned
Shadow banning is real. We love you
This is why we beg for shares fr; RUclips is not our friend 😩
Yeah super easy ..maybe for someone born post 2000.
Trust me; it’s as easy as going to the website and clicking “flash”
Oh. I dont have a computer
If you have an iPod touch or something you can order the pre- flashed versions on Etsy.
Although you should definitely consider owning even a raspberry pi or something similar!!
@@DeskPop I don't like raspberry. I'll get a lemon pie though
Nothing is more american than a warm cherry pie.
You know thats a womans shirt, right?
I don’t think so.
That neck though. Just meshin
Well if you guys would have put up a note higher you would have got better signal and use it as a repeater but clearly you guys didn't read anything and you guys just decided to put up a nonsense video
@@ralphg3315 maybe you’re regarded because our whole system was based on the two way range claims we’ve seen. We clearly explain adding more nodes increases range; this video was extremely helpful to the people who have been fed the magic “replaces your phone” claim.